


Crescent City

by Eve (Aoife), IShouldBeWriting



Category: Singularity North
Genre: Flash back takes place at least partially in New Orleans during Katrina, Gen, Song fic, flash back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 15:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Eve, https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShouldBeWriting/pseuds/IShouldBeWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A piece of Mace & Fee's shared past comes back to haunt them, and sets the Valkyries off on the beginning of an <i>adventure</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crescent City

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for [](http://hiddencait.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hiddencait.livejournal.com/)**hiddencait** , who provided this song for the original challenge. We did attempt to pick her brain, but then the bunny attacked, and we ended up writing around the gun law issues in question.

"Yeah? No. Of course, Colonel. We'll be ready to go by tomorrow at the very latest."

Fee hung up her mobile and sighed tiredly. Looking up from across the office, Mace's expression offered a silent query.

"Colby," Fee replied shortly.

"What's the Colonel want now?"

"He's calling in the last of _those_ favors."

"Bugger." Mace replied succinctly.

Looking up from their spot sharing Rachel's tablet, the other two female Valkyries eyed the pair suspiciously.

"Boss, the last time you did a favor for Colby it ended up... odd." Rachel looked pointedly at the white board of recent missions. "What's he hanging over your head anyways?"

"History." It was Mace who responded.

Fee buried her head between her hands.

"Come clean, Fee. If you don't tell, I'll get Bennett to come help _me_ tell it and put Robin on the spiderphone."

Fee slouched down even farther behind her desk. "Fine," she quipped back sullenly. "Just remember, I was a lot stupider then. Besides, if I recall, a certain lieutenant in this room refused to be left behind, so which one of us is the more insane?"

Mace held up her hands in defeat. "Do I still owe a forfeit on that?"

"Too right you do - and it involves the Mason-Dixon line!"

"Story, boss?" Lily asked hopefully. "Before you two get so caught up in the foreplay that you forget we're in the room. Again."

"It was five years ago. Mace and I were just back off our respective first deployments...." Fee's eyes slid sideways to the picture frame sitting at the corner of her desk and Mace gave a soft smile. The next sentence would have sounded like a non-sequitur if it weren’t for the story that followed...

"I have a younger sister. Morgan. She looks the spitting image of our parents. And she's all that I have left of them."

~~oOOo~~

I have my mother's dreams,

I have my father's eyes,

You can't take that from me,

Just go ahead and try.

Wrapping her combat jacket more tightly around her athletic torso, Mace grimaced. She'd been back in the UK for less than a half hour and already was feeling the difference in temperature. High summer in Helmand Province was a good twenty degrees warmer than the arrivals lounge at Brize Norton. Looking tiredly across the other units awaiting transport, she spotted a distinctive head of flaming red hair. She took off at a brisk walk and was half way across the lounge before she registered the radius of empty space around the redhead in question. Though the rest of the lounge was crowded, it felt like the air temperature dropped even colder as she came within range of Fee. The cutting brittle tone of the other woman's voice was plenty of reason for the rest of the lads to have left her alone. The fact that she was wearing the patch of an EOD operator had obviously only added to their self-preservation instinct.

The redhead snapped her mobile shut with a decisive click and stood there radiating frustration. Taking a deep breath, Mace counted to three, tapped her lightly on the shoulder, then immediately ducked from the blow she'd already anticipated. Seeing who it was that had disturbed her, Fee's expression turned apologetic. She shook her head and her shoulders dropped defeatedly.

"What's wrong?" Mace whispered. "Your own team won't come within ten feet of you."

"I can't raise Poppy or Mori and I can't get hold of either of their emergency contacts."

"That's... not good." Mace opined.

"No," Fee gritted. "There's a class three hurricane spinning off the coast of Florida about to make landfall. Poppy swore on everything she holds sacred that she'd call and she knew _exactly_ when I was due to land."

"News sites?"

"No data service,” she said, waving her older clamshell mobile. “Besides, I haven't had the chance to check them yet," Fee replied with a grimace.

The van pulled up to pick up the first load of troops headed for Litchfield.

"That's your mob, isn't it?" Fee asked.

"Yeah. Hang on a sec."

Sprinting across the lounge, Mace quickly conferred with one of the men. Based on the three pips on his shoulder, Fee assumed it to be her captain. The captain shook his head, laughed, and said something in reply before Mace headed back toward Fee, this time at a more leisurely walk.

"Think I'll follow along to your accommodations for the minute. That is, if you don't mind?"

Fee laughed and bent down the rummage in her bergen. Her arm reappeared from the depths of the pack a moment later with a second engineer beret.

"Colby's half asleep from running half the HQ solo because our major’s injured. This is easier than trying to wake him up enough to ask permission."

"Better to ask forgiveness later than permission now?" Mace offered with a half smile.

"He’s human enough that he'll just laugh if he realizes he's got one too many female officers."

"Fair enough," Mace said as she slipped Fee's daysack onto her own shoulder. "Let's get back to your accommodation and see if we can scrounge up a net connection."

~~oOOo~~

The crescent city sleeps,

While giants in the sky,

Preparing to unleash,

Let loose a mighty cry.

Mace’s jaw tightened as she and Fee read over the newspaper they’d found in the mess.

“What a bloody mess.” Mace grimaced. “Well, at leas that explains why she hasn’t called. I seriously doubt she could get mobile or landline signal out of the Gulf Coast area presently with that sort of storm barrelling down on them.”

“Mace, she’s my baby sister. Something is _wrong_. I can’t tell you what, but my gut’s screaming. You saw me just before we found out that the major’s team had been hit?” Fee shrugged uncomfortably. “Sometimes it’s just like that. I just _know_.”

“Shhhhh,” Mace murmured, laying a calming hand on Fee’s forearm. “I’m not questioning your instincts. Remember?” One finger flicked under the chain of her dog tags, making them jingle. “Shared beliefs.”

“So what do we do?” Fee asked, getting up from the bench and beginning to pace.

Mace threaded her fingers through her hair and rested her head in her hands for a few moments, thinking.

“You said your Colonel’s a decent sort. Would he grant it if you asked for leave right now?”

“Where do you _think_ I was supposed to be spending my post-deployment leave, Mace?”

“Point,” she replied, tipping one hand in concession. “Can we expedite getting there?”

Fee stopped pacing and raised one eyebrow at her friend. “Looks like we’re going to have to beard Colby in his den...”

Nodding agreement, Mace rose from her place at table. She hitched the waistband of her skirt slightly, tugging it back into place. Despite the similarity of their builds, they’d both lost weight and gained muscle while on operations. What little nice clothing Fee’d had in her wardrobe fit neither of them well but for propriety’s sake it would do, for now.

~~oOOo~~

Can nobody save us?

Will anyone try?

The bayou is burning,

The cypress is dying.

And all along they're saying.

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

One by land, two by sea.

Right there in front of me.

Help is on the way.

Fee didn’t bother knocking as she stalked into the outer office.

“Is the boss in, Robin?”

The command clerk nodded fractionally with a frown. “He is, but - “

“No buts. I need to see him. NOW.”

To his credit, the corporal in question barely blinked at the demanding tone. Before he could reply, a man’s head poked round the corner of one of the office doors.

His voice brooked no arguments in that way which only a CO could do. “Fiona. My office, now. And the explanation better be good.” Looking past her to Mace still lingering in the doorway he shook his head. “And bring your minion too. I know she’s on the wrong camp.”

The clerk behind the desk barely hid his smirk as he ducked his head and made a show of returning to writing a report. He flicked the microphone on the intercom to mute but turned the speaker on. Long association had taught him that if Colby didn’t want him listening, he’d mute the other end of the line. It was a little game they played. Colby was a demanding boss. Keeping up with him had left Robin feeling run over by a transport for the first few months of his tenure. But as they’d grown accustomed to each other’s habits, he’d picked up a trick or two. Such as listening in on the intercom line to pre-emptively begin setting plans into motion when something urgent came up. At this point in their association, Colby not only knew about the habit but tacitly approved of and exploited it. Robin had the feeling this was going to be one of those times.

The mic feed hissed and fuzzed for a moment before settling down.

“The twelve year old is on a sleepover and the twins are at visiting with the grandparents. My wife’s expecting me home so this damned well better be good, Fiona.”

Standing almost at parade rest, Fee looked at the wall rather than her commanding officer. “I need to start my leave immediately, sir.”

“Something I should know, lieutenant?”

“My sister’s in New Orleans, sir.”

“Yes,” he said evenly, “I was aware of that.”

Seeing Fee’s shoulders tighten, Mace interjected. “Have you checked the news recently, Colonel Colby?”

“Only in passing,” he admitted. “I assume its relevant?”

“A category three hurricane made landfall in Florida sometime yesterday. Now it’s headed back inland projected to swipe across the rest of the Gulf states. And I can’t get hold of either my sister or her legal guardian.”

Colby tapped something into his terminal and pulled up Fee’s post-operational tour leave pass. “You requested permission to use your post-op leave and residual leave to visit her in the US?” The corner of his mouth quirked as he realised Robin was already pulling up the same files and tweaking the dates as he continued reading.

“You’re the only one of the subalterns who’s cleared all their paperwork _before_ we left Cyprus, and you’d be travelling on a US passport so I don’t see a problem.”

Mace almost said something and Colby looked at her.

“Your minion on the other hand, probably is a problem. Does her colonel know where she is?”

“No probably about it, sir And allegedly he knows where she is ...”

Mace opened her mouth to object, but a warning look from Fee had her shutting it again wihout speaking; this was Fee’s CO - she knew how to deal with him.

“Mace is an ATO, sir. We played together at Sandhurst. She caught me trying to call home, and the two main emergency contacts I have and came along for the ride.”

He looked the other woman up and down and raised an eyebrow, and Mace tried and failed to look innocent.

“Just a concerned friend, sir.”

“Indeed. Service number, lieutenant?”

Mace reeled it off, and he pulled her file up on screen. And was bemused to find Robin had beat him to the record. He’d be interested to know which of the clues his corporal had followed to figure out who the woman was before she provided her service number. It was a skill that had potential, provided he didn’t get caught abusing it.

“No allegedly about it Fiona. She’s certainly not marked as AWOL. And apparently she started her leave this morning. So _what_ are you two after.”

“Help with a Visa for Mace. For some reason she doesn’t trust me to go and get Morgan on my own, sir.”

He looked at Mace, and smiled crookedly with a conspiratorial air.

“For an ATO, lieutenant, that is a surprisingly smart decision.”

There was a knock at the door, and Robin entered with a folder and handed it to Colby without a word. “And a cup of coffee, please Robin?”

“Of course, sir.”

Fee’s laughter followed the corporal out the door. “He’s good. You really do need to keep him, sir.”

“Trying to. Certain individuals have already made attempts to poach him.” He opened the folder. “And I think you owe him a postcard. Something from Texas, with a jackelope, perhaps?”

He turned the folder around and Fee’s eyes widened slightly at the mostly complete travel order, on top of a stack of flight reservations. Clipped to the top sheet was a scrap of paper, bearing a roughly sketched image of a rabbit with antlers.

“Looks like you won’t need any more help from me, lieutenants. Now get out of my office. I have an appointment at home with my wife, and I’m already running late.”

“Even sex runs on regimental time ...” she muttered and looking up to see the expression on his face, she quickly added “... sir.”

He dashed his pen across the signature lines on the document. Fee scooped the folder up before he could shred it on her in retaliation for the cheeky remark, and hustled Mace out of the office at speed.

As they left, Colby picked up his phone and dialed the appropriate number at the US Embassy in London.

Five thousand feet below,

As black smoke engulfs the sky,

The ocean floor explodes,

Eleven mothers cry.

My bones all resonate,

A burning lullaby,

You can't take that from me,

Just go ahead and try.

Poppy looked up at the sky and wrapped her arms a little more tightly around her waist; her shop was boarded up properly, and she had a feeling that something was more wrong than they were being told. Without a formal evacuation order there was already a steady stream of people leaving the city, but at this point with the conditions on her shop's insurance, she had no choice but to stay, and no ability, or desire to send Morgan away by herself.

Yes, she could have put her ward on the next Greyhound to Austin, but that was a fourteen hour trip and no guarantees of it being necessary yet, but something in her gut ... she threw up a quiet prayer to her goddess that Morgan at least would come through whatever was happening in one piece. Fee was due to arrive on leave within the next week - perhaps it was time Morgan returned to the UK with her sister now that Fee was old enough to hold the legal guardianship on her own. With one operational deployment under her belt, Fee shouldn't be going again until Morgan could be left on her own.

A cloud, darker than the rest and tinted grey, studded across the sky and Poppy rubbed her elbow, trying to ease the pressure in her joints. There was a rippling, dangerous fragment of an old slave lullaby, _Babylon's Falling_ , echoing in her head, harmonising with the dull roar that she could feel in her bones.

~~oOOo~~

She stands at the shoreline,

With hands in the air,

Her words pierce the dark night,

"Does anyone care? "

And all along they're saying

She was supposed to be back at the shop, but Morgan had slipped away, needing an escape from the endless rounds of her legal guardian’s storm preparations. If she got sent round to yet another neighbors’ to run grocery shopping for them, or help board up windows, or mind the baby while someone else did the work, she was going to scream. Yes, she understood the necessity of it, but really, all Morgan wanted was a few moments of peace and quiet. An eye in the center of the maelstrom of preparations. A space in which to be herself and not just Poppy’s dependable ward and dogsbody.

"... source of life and source of power, ..." Her hair unbound and whipping loose in the wind, Morgan looked every inch the stereotype. Unlike her sister and her guardian, she reveled in it, shamelessly baiting her classmates and teachers with her choice of clothing and heavily overdone makeup.

Her hand dipped into the pouch and drew a single ogham before throwing it into the water followed by a silver pendant. The two items didn’t even make a ripple nor a satisfying sound as they hit the water and vanished beneath the turbulence of waves. Morgan growled angrily and turned her back on the shoreline.

“We’re killing our world,” she fumed. “Lady Danu, doesn’t anybody care?”

~~oOOo~~

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

One by land, two by sea.

Right there in front of me.

Help is on the way.

Their plane landed, skidding and bucking slightly on winds stronger than they were suppose to be this far from the coast. Fee swore and turned slightly green in her seat. She had to wait a few moments, sitting still and just breathing deeply as the other passengers scrambled to pull their luggage out of the overhead bins. She far preferred landing under fire and scrambling out of a Hercules; at least then she had something else to concentrate on and an outlet for her frustration. Mace brushed a hand down Fee’s shoulder, bringing her back to reality. The other woman pulled their day sacks out from under the seats as Fee rose stiffly and stumbled into the aisle. Mace gripped her friend’s arm tightly and steered her off the plane and into the terminal.

“Keep it together, Fee. We at least need to get through customs before you fall apart.”

They received a raised eyebrow for Mace’s travel order, but were waved through the diplomatic lane, and were exiting the airport in less than twenty minutes as they didn’t have any luggage in the hold.

Fee required a sharp poke to the ribs from Mace to produce her Louisiana driver’s licence for the rental car place, which did receive a sharp glance.

“Y’all not intendin’ to take one of my vehicles into the hurricane are you?” the desk clerk asked shrewdly.

Mace shook her head in response.

“Just closer to the Louisiana border. We’re expecting to meet her little sister,” Mace poked Fee again, “and her sister’s legal guardian, there. Then we’ll drive back this way and hole up out of the way of the storm. Probably fly them both back to the UK at the first opportunity.”

“Okay, then. Sign here and here. And sweetheart, don’t let the Brit drive the truck.”

“Did you not notice we’re both _Brits_?” Fee quipped over her shoulder, allowing her hips to sway enticingly as they headed for the car lot.

The string of swears that followed the off was _instructive_.

~~oOOo~~

Choking on the black gold,

Upon which we rely,

We keep axes in the attics,

To see cameras in the sky.

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

One of the two external pockets on Mace’s bergen began to ring and Fee raised her eyebrow. Mace dove for her backpack and answered Fee’s raised eyebrow with a shrug.

“Colby’s highly efficient Corporal brought it by before we left camp.”

Before Fee could offer a snappy return, Mace opened the satphone and answered calmly.

“Yes, sir?”

There was a brief pause and then Mace went bone white and dove for the television remote. She clicked through channels until she found one running news reports. The footage that she could see resulted in Fee diving for the wastebin. The redhead curled around it, wretching, her eyes glued to the telly between bouts.

“Sir, judging by Fee’s reaction, that was not a bit of the city we wanted to see under water.”

Mace reached for a notepad and wrote down the two phone numbers that Colby read off to her. She read them back to him to confirm that they were correct and answered, “of course, sir,” to his next statement, before closing the phone and moving across the tiny motel room to check on Fee.

Fee flinched and Mace brushed the hair away from her face gently.

“He’s contacted one of the Louisiana National Guard officers he’s worked with before and they know we’re headed into the area. If we manage to run into them, they’ll give us as much help as they can, but there are no guarantees.”

Looking up, Fee’s lips compressed tightly and she nodded. “Its more than I expected.”

“We both need to memorize both of these phone numbers,” Mace said, waving the slip of paper she held. “One is the Defense Attache in Washington who now knows we are here. The other is the Louisiana National Guard colonel whom your boss has been talking to.”

Fee nodded and uncurled from around the waste bin. Staggering unsteadily to her feet, she made her way to the bathroom and shut the door firmly. Shaking her head, Mace tucked the satphone into her bag again and went back to watching the news, keeping half an ear on the bathroom just in case.

~~oOOo~~

We were told just to sit tight,

'Cause somebody will soon arrive.

Help is on the way.

But it never came!

It never came!

They’d been up with the sun and dodging traffic had eaten up a significantly larger part of their day than Fee had found tolerable. By the time they were stopped by a National Guard checkpoint, Fee had had enough. She’d already popped the door open and was about to unbuckle her seatbelt when Mace stopped her.

“Don’t, Fee.” The redhead growled at her and Mace slowly let go of her arm. “Think of this as one of our checkpoints in theatre. Would you let us through?”

Fee’s eyes closed for a moment and she shook her head.

“That’s what I thought,” Mace said, suppressing a sigh of relief. Her coursemate had been getting progressively twitchier throughout the day. At this point, rationality was only working some of the time, she was lucky that’d been the case at the minute.

A hulking man in fatigues rapped smartly on the window of the truck and the tension dissipated as Fee instinctively snapped into command mode. Rolling down the window, she gave the man a disdainful once over, lingering on the poor maintenance of his uniform.

“What can I do for you, sergeant?”

“The area’s under evacuation orders, ma’am. Respectfully, I’m going to have to ask you to turn around.”

“Like hell you will,” Fee ground out before Mace placed a warning hand on her shoulder. Her voice was more reasonable when she continued. “I need you to contact Colonel Lavelle of the 769th Engineer Battalion. We’ve special clearance to go in retrieving civilians.”

The sergeant gave both of them a long disbelieving look.

“Sergeant...” Mace warned, her hand still on Fee’s shoulder to keep her friend inside the truck.

“Any chance you’ve got a reference number for those clearance orders, ladies?”

Fee growled at being called a lady, but Mace scrounged around in her bag producing an ID as well as the slip of paper from the previous night’s phone call.

“The least you could do would be to address us by rank, sergeant.”

The man’s eyes popped wider as he caught sight of the two military ID cards inside the wallet Mace held up for his inspection.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re nothing more than an inconvenient roadblock, sergeant, Now go make that phone call. If we have to backtrack, your HQ will be receiving a phone call to tell them exactly how _efficient_ you’ve been at performing your duties.”

He came back a few minutes later, this time, saluting them properly, and coming to parade rest beside their truck. “We’ve been told to send you straight through to Baton Rouge. Colonel Lavelle will meet you there.”

“Thank you, sergeant,” Mace replied.

Not waiting for further niceties, Fee put her foot to the floor, almost running over the sergeant’s booted toes as she took off past the sawhorses which the troopers had already pulled aside.

~~oOOo~~

Mori leant half way out of the attic window, Poppy’s hand looped in her belt.

“We could go in your umbrella, said Pooh.”

“That bad?”

“Worse.” Poppy pulled the teenager back in by her belt. Mori waved her arms as she was tugged back in.

“But I can see helicopters!”

“You falling in swamp water mixed with sewage and dead bodies is not going to help us Morgan Travailion Black. Stop trying to get yourself killed, sweetheart.” Morgan pouted a little but curled herself up on one of the couches - the attic was normally her hiding space, and she’d been unhappy to have to share.

“That tears it, Poppy. The entire first floor is underwater; can I stick my head through the hatch and check the second floor?”

“No. If you can’t see the edge of the window frames on the first floor, then the second floor will be starting to fill up as well. We’ll wait it out up here.”

~~oOOo~~

Colby’d had Robin wheel the television set into the office and the unfolding coverage of New Orleans running quietly in the background. He’d thrown enough weight around on his lieutenant’s behalf that he wanted to know _exactly_ what was going on.

A flash of very, very familiar red hair caught the edge of his peripheral vision, and Colby’s head snapped round, expecting to see Fiona and already reaching for the satphone. He blinked when he realised the shape of the body was wrong. But the face and hair colour were all to similar for coincidence. The news ticker along the bottom of the screen said that the helicopter was over St Bernard’s Parish.

“Fuck. At least her sister is still alive.”

He flipped a coin then picked up his desk phone and dialed the number for the National Guard Colonel he’d been talking with previously. The line was answered by a very junior sounding Captain.

“Tell Colonel Lavelle that the reporters have just found my bloody lieutenants’ target.”

“He’s gone to inspect the levees and they’re both with him, sir. I’m not sure I _can_ get hold of him.” Colby gritted his teeth.

“He doesn’t have a satphone with him?” Colby asked in disbelief.

 

“We don’t have any issued at the moment, sir. The few we had went to the guys deployed to Iraq.”

“This is ridiculous, Captain. Are there any messages that _do_ need to get to him? Because my lieutenants have a satphone and that’s the next call I’ll be making.”

The captain sounded grateful as he reeled off a list of messages, some of which raised Colby’s eyebrows, and had him making a note to speak privately with Colonel Lavelle afterwards about drilling his men more regularly for disaster protocols. Colby dropped the handset back into its cradle and checked that the satphone had signal before hitting the first speed dial key.

“Lieutenant Graham.”

“Hand me to Fiona, lieutenant.”

“Your sister’s still alive,” he said softly. “I’m watching live footage on CNN from one of their helicopters that claims it’s over St Bernard’s Parish, and she’s the spitting image of you, Fee.”

“They never left home. Shit,” Fee took a deep breath to compose herself before continuing. “We’re just on the edge of the parish now, sir. It looks like a minimum of nine feet of flooding and getting deeper by the minute. And this is in one of the areas currently being protected by a _damaged_ levee.”

“Hand the phone to Colonel Lavelle, Lieutenant.”

~~oOOo~~

Fee dropped into the flat bottom of the Zodiac, a combination of relief and fear churning in her gut. Contrary to appearances, she had been listening to the conversations going on around both her and Mace. It was a case of when, not if, the levees would break. The Guard Officers were talking about trying to keep all of the levees intact, but if Fee was remembering her higher level Fluid Mechanics and Hydrodynamics courses correctly, they should have been preparing to blow some of the levees in order to reduce the strain on the rest of the system. Unfortunately, St Bernard’s Parish was one of the areas that _should_ have been considered sacrificial if it came to preventing the rest of the levee system from bursting.

Colonel Lavelle snapped the satphone shut and handed it back to Mace somewhat reluctantly. “I’ve got a boat heading into the parish shortly. You were trained as a Civil Engineer, Lieutenant Black? If you were to accompany that group to offer an assessment of the levees’ stability, it would allow you to retrieve your sister and save me time.” He took a breath. “Don’t make me regret this, please.”

~~oOOo~~

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

Help is on the way

(They said, they said)

One by land, two by sea.

Right there in front of me.

Help is on the way.

On the way.

The organisation of the team due to go into St Bernard’s Parish took an infuriatingly long time from Fee’s perspective. Given the reports of looting, someone had been nice enough to find a pistol for each of them as well, though Fee had gotten a dirty look when she asked for two extra life-vests.

Then they were back inside one of those stupid rubber toy boats being used by the National Guard. They were about the worst thing Fee could have imagined for the conditions, but the Guardsmen didn’t appear to be aware of how poorly supplied they actually were. Next time duty put her in a Rigid Raider, she’d actually be grateful for it. Beside her, Mace’s expression was stony as she scanned ahead of them through rain driven sideways by high winds.

An hour later they’d inspected two levees and finally navigated into the section of the parish where Poppy’s shop was located. As the landmarks became more familiar, Fee began giving directions, resisting the urge to go to the back of the boat and take the tiller for herself.

“There!” she croaked, spotting the distinctive metal filigree on a particular lamp-post. She’d walked past it dozens of times during her visits and never thought twice about it, but today she found herself throwing a prayer of grateful skyward into the arms of her goddess on behalf of the unnamed smith responsible for the odd bit of art.

One of the guardsmen grabbed the downspout on the side of the building and worked the rope around it to keep the boat from drifting. Mace’s scrabbled for purchase along the clapboard walls, trying desperately to keep the other end of the boat steady as Fee grabbed hold of the gutters and pulled herself up onto the roof.

Feet slipping across tarpaper and shingles, Fee hauled herself across the angled surface. When she finally reached the attic window, she pounded on it in desperation, not caring whether or not the glass shattered beneath her hand. An answering hand pressed up against the glass, fingers splayed out in supplication. Fee backed up, waiting impatiently as the hatch cranked open.

Diving halfway into the opening, she blinked furiously as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Fiona?” A voice called in confusion and wonder.

Before she could respond, she was being hugged breathless. Still hanging half upside down through the window, Fee yelped and flexed her toes, desperate not to lose her balance and slide down into the attic head first.

“Let her go, Mori,” Poppy’s voice was stern and strained. “Or you’ll pull her down on top of you.”

The teenager backed off and Fee grabbed the window ledge again so she could back up and look inside properly. With her body no longer blocking the space, both Poppy and Mori came to stand beneath her.

Looking downward, she saw Mace lose her grip, pulling off a rotting piece of board in her hand.

“Time to go,” Fee said shortly, her hand already reaching down to grab her sister.

Poppy laced her fingers together, providing a boost for Morgan as she was pulled out through the hatch and onto the roof.

“Now how are we -”

Fee didn’t have time to finish asking the question. Poppy disappeared and reappeared a moment later with a chair.

“It’s not much, but it’ll do for now, I think.”

Clambering up onto the chair’s seat Poppy grasped hold of Fee’s arms. Fee pulled and Poppy pushed up against the chair back with one foot, getting just enough leverage to make it the rest of the way out onto the roof.

For a moment, Fee panicked when she realized that Morgan was nowhere in sight. But then she could hear one of the guardsmen in the boat below, calmly and clearly offering instructions on how to put on the life vest, and the panic was gone. Beside her Poppy began a carefully controlled slide down the roof toward the waiting hands just visible over the edge of the gutters.

She looked at the level of the water against the houses across the street and realized it had risen further. Dropping back into the boat, she instructed the guardsmen to return to the rendevous point that Colonel Lavelle had set. If at all possible, she wanted out of New Orleans before the levees finally gave way. At this point it was inevitable and Fee mourned for the lower portions of the city, knowing they would never be the same again.

Upon their return, Colonel Lavelle looked at her sorrowfully when she reported on the state of the levees.

“We’re losing our city,” he said softly. “And Heaven help us, they won’t let us do the one thing that might save some of it.”

~~oOOo~~

Rachel and Lily blinked.

“Okay, that explains a hell of a lot, boss.”

Maces’ arms wrapped around Fee’s waist and squeezed her briefly.

“There’s a little bit more,” she offered.

Lily nodded expectantly.

“Colby and Robin organized us plane tickets home. By the time we were back in the UK, they had a place at a decent school for Morgan and the wives had rallied round and one of the spare quarters ready for Fee to set up house.”

“And Poppy?” Rachel asked gently, sensing with the same unerring instincts as always that there’d been at least one bit of personal tragedy for them both in the experience.

Fee buried her head in Mace’s shoulder, still unable to face it, even five years later. One of Mace’s hands stroked soothingly across their captain’s back, curling protectively around her partner’s shoulders before speaking again.

“She was on medication,” Mace finished flatly. “Something she had to take every day. She sent Morgan off with us, knowing that the doses she’d missed had taken their toll. Bronchitis, then pneumonia. All the hospital records were destroyed in the flooding but from what Morgan’s told us, we suspect that she’d been fighting off a second round of cancer.”

Neither Rachel nor Lily knew what to say. The room was quiet for a few minutes, Fee’s shoulder shaking slightly as she quietly cried.

“Do we want to know what we’ll be doing to repay the last of Colby’s favors?” Lily asked.

Mace smiled wryly. “Actually, I think you’ll rather like this assignment, Lil. Best go home and start digging for your passport. We’re going to Israel.”


End file.
